Wanna Play Guitar Solo?

Wanna Play Guitar Solo?

If you say yes, read on! Maybe you've learn about chords like C, D, E, F, you named it. And then you listen to some songs from Mr. Big or Metallica or your favorite bands. You can guess or play the chord progression from their songs. But when it comes to solo, you have no idea on how to play it. So, in this post I will explain some basic soloing. Hope it useful.

The first step to learn solo is to learn scales. What is Scale? Scale is basiclly playing a bunch of notes from low to high or high to low in a good sounding order. There's a lot of scales, such as Major Scales, Minor Scales, Pentatonic Scales, etc.

A Scale is constructed by lots of notes and each scales has it own root. Root is like a starting note. I'm gonna give you some example. Below is C Major scale :

r = root

C Major Scale 1st Position

   r
|------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------|
|------------2-4-5-------------------------------|
|------2-3-5-------------------------------------|
|--3-5-------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------|

You see the example above start in C (5th String, 3rd fret). C Major scale construct by C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. Try to find all these notes on your guitar and you'll get C Major scale on every position with C as the root.

So, if a song use C Major as the key, it means the solo construct by C Major scale.

So how do I find A Major Scale? What is Minor Scales?

There's a lot of great articles about scales on the internet. Here some :
Scales @ Cyberfret
Scales @ Ultimate-Guitar

Don't forget to read about Modes because modes is scale's best friends. Here you go :
Modes of the Major Scales
Understanding Modes And How To Apply Them

And here are scales library :
Gui Tools
Online Scales Library

Once you learn about basic soloing, you can learn guitar techniques and apply it to your solo. This is why guitar players like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani always have great solo on their songs.
I've made a post about guitar technique basics here.

Also, you can increase your finger speed & accuracy. This is what Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Al Di Meola or Yngwie Malmsteen do. You learn it here.

You can combine both tehniques and speed to your solo and develop your own style. But, the most important thing is that you have to use your heart when you play solo. Set the mood for each solo that you play. If the song is sad then you have to feel the sadness. This is what makes you the next great guitar player.

Wanna Play Guitar Solo?